It has been known in the art of permanent magnets to use mechanical alloying and apply it to prepare Nd.sub.2 Fe.sub.14 B.sub.1 (2:14:1 Phase), Sm(Fe--TM).sub.12 (1:12 Phase) and interstitial nitrided and carbided permanent magnets wherein the transition metal (TM) is V, Ti and Zr. However, if Nd.sub.2 Fe.sub.17 (2:17) phase or Sm(FeTM).sub.12 is nitrogenated or carbonated the coercivity becomes very low. The prior art started from elemental powders, the hard magnetic phases are formed by milling followed by solid state reaction at relatively low temperatures. In Nd--Fe--B, the magnetic isotrope particles are microcrystalline, show a high coercivity (up to 16 kA/cm for ternary alloys and above for Dy-substituted samples) (J. Appl. Phys. No. 70 (10), Nov. 15 1991, pp. 6339-6344). In the prior art the previous 1:12 alloys were based on Sm-containing compounds. Sm, however, is an expensive rare earth metal as compared to Nd and Pr. We have discovered a new permanent magnet based on the 1:12 phase that does not require the use of the expensive Sm rare earth metal.